journal entry uno

Kirby Dennis

Reflecting upon a technique class I attended two summers ago, I remember something the facilitator said to us. I believe his exact words were, “a good teacher teaches you how to cut the umbilical cord.” At the time I thought I understood what he meant by this statement, since then I have lived with those words somewhere in my head. I have found myself in the studios of teachers recently who have either been able to teach in this way, or not. The successful teacher didn’t just teach me how to play the piece of music in front of me, he taught me something about music reflecting life. He inspired me to make music instead of cranking out dots and lines from the page. When I played like that in his lesson he told me to stop playing “naked notes”.

It reminds me of a few of the conductors I’ve had recently. Two of them did great job of leading the orchestra, and the one who was less successful was insensitive to the orchestra on a number of levels. The two who felt and listened to what the orchestra needed ended up leading by guiding. The insensitive conductor tried regimenting every subdivision of the beat.

Speaking black and white dots and lines... Somewhere else along the line I heard the phrase music will never be played exactly the same way twice. When we play music on a page, we are following a set of guidelines laid out in a musical transcription that has transcended some period of time. When we take criticism from our teachers, ideally, they are giving us suggestions that help guide us towards understanding the most natural way to express music through a wooden medium.

In any field of musicianship there are a number of stages of development as well as a lot of areas to interpret and pass along. While helping someone anything, it is never a good idea to just blurt out the answer or ‘right’ way, rather to explain how to get the answer next time. Taking on the task of becoming a teacher is taking on a world in a person’s life that could be the best thing that could ever happen to them. Any experience with music whether it be a drumming circle, a concert, a lesson, or what have you, could possibly be the best experience of some part of someone’s life. Maybe. Although, I guess then it could go exactly the opposite way and it could be the worst part of someone’s life. Oh boy..